Life & Style reporter

"In this picture, I had never actually had a boyfriend in real life. I was totally uncomfortable, and the photographer was telling me to arch my back and put my hands in that guy's hair."

This is the surprising revelation Victoria's Secret model, Cameron Russell, made about the image above - just one of the many sexy-looking shots she has appeared in.

"This picture [below]... was the very first time I had worn a bikini and I didn't even have my period yet," the 26-year-old said in her recent TED talk. "How we look, though it is superficial and immutable, has a huge impact on our lives."

But, images are representations, not reality. And representations of what our culture deems as beautiful or not can have a profound impact on our lives. The attractive are more likely to be employed, be paid more money, obtain loan approvals, negotiate loans with better terms, and have more handsome and highly educated spouses.

This is a notion Russell grapples with.

"I am a pretty, white woman, and in my industry we call that a sexy girl... I won a genetic lottery, and I am the recipient of a legacy... [that defines] beauty not just as health and youth, but also as tall, slender figures and femininity and white skin," she says, noting that, in 2007, less than four per cent of models on the runway were non-white. "And this is a legacy that was built for me, and it's a legacy that I've been cashing out on."

It's a legacy that comes with all sorts of connotations.

"People ask me... 'What is it like to be a model?' And I think the answer that they're looking for is, 'If you're a little bit skinnier and you have shinier hair, you will be so happy and fabulous,'" she says.

"If you are ever wondering, 'If I have thinner thighs and shinier hair, will I be happier?' you just need to meet a group of models, because they have the thinnest thighs and the shiniest hair and the coolest clothes, and they're the most physically insecure women probably on the planet."

But so powerful is image and our perception of what it represents, it permeates many people's sense of self-worth. Seductive or repulsive, image has a stranglehold on our society. We know it's superficial, that it's rarely real and yet we are fixated by the image of ourselves and others. And how harshly and quickly we judge it.

"You are a fat, worthless pig." "You're too thin. No man is ever going to want you." "Ugly. Big. Gross." These were the words more than 300 women in a Glamour Magazine survey reported saying to themselves on a daily basis.

We say it to each other, too. In a searingly raw and honest account, writer Ann Bauer said she knew she was ugly from as early as she could remember.

For the offense of not being what society says is sexy, she "suffered nonstop abuse," she wrote in Elle magazine last year. Apart from one "stunningly good-looking and bizarrely kind" boy who told her she was beautiful, none "had ever spoken to [her] other than to jeer."

Her one college boyfriend did not want to be seen with her in public. After leaving parties, where they would pretend they didn't know each other, he'd call. "I'd go to his room - furtively, checking to see if anyone was around before knocking - and climb into his bed."

She had all but resigned herself to the impact of her appearance on her life and the reaction she received, until she met and fell in love. A traditionally handsome man with a "chiseled Baptist preacher's face", her new partner was equally in love and "swooned at [her] large eyes and mouth, prominent nose, and buxom shape."

Soon they were married and, in 2009, she wrote an essay called Finding Love at 40. Alongside the story was a photo of the pair.

The abusive comments started almost instantly. "You're a hag who looks like your husband's mother, and my wife agrees. He will leave you soon," said one. "Are you ever a PIG!" said another.

Of course she deserved the abuse, she told herself. Unattractive people don't deserve love, just like attractive people with thinner thighs are happier. How utterly insane to think otherwise. And so for a time she took the comments on board, distancing herself from her husband and unable to tell him why.

Then one night, after watching a foreign film her husband told her she looked like the people in the movie. "Do you know this is the first thing that attracted me to you?" he said, stroking her face. "It was so, I don't know, exotic - unlike any other woman I knew."

She knew that he was telling the truth.

Her husband's love helped her to see her own beauty and that she didn't have to fit the image of a society stereotype. Thankfully, many people do see that beauty has many faces and that there is so much more to each of us than meets the eye.

But, we also need to recognise the infatuation with image that we have in our culture.

By cultivating more awareness, perhaps we can tend less towards the harsh critiques of ourselves and others. And we can beware of attaching too much meaning to mere image; assuming that 'pretty' means right, good, worthy and that 'ugly' means wrong, bad, unworthy.

Cameron Russell suggests this starts with acknowledging the power of image in our perceived successes and our perceived failures.

115 comments

Body image/preceived attractiveness are the bane of modern existence - made worse by social media which allows anonymous people to judge others as harshly (or more harshly) than they judge themselves. Yes, there's an obesity epidemic and yes most of us could be healthier. But funny how self-loathing also seems to be flourishing for everyone, no matter the actual level of attractiveness/fitness. Eating disorders, cutting, prescription anti-depressants/anti-anxiety meds usage increasing every year...something's got to change.

Commenter

TK

Date and time

February 05, 2013, 5:47AM

The freedom to define oneself may seem to be an incontrovertible human right, as most people believe that they exercise it continuously and without restriction, but such belief rests on the assumption of autonomy of meaning. It is rather obvious that we are not subject to isolated existence and that others inadvertently affect us, that they influence our meaning, but we do not recognise the full extent of social influence, forgetting that every word we ever use, every image we can relate to, is already borrowed from the rest of humanity. It is an error to regard an image as a 'representation' just because it was artificially constructed; it is always an assertion of value, a genesis and direct presentation of meaning. We seamlessly pick up new names, styles, ideologies and expressions from popular sources, we integrate them as our own, but we do not ask where they originate from. We echo the voices of popular sources, we repeat their words, their opinions and value judgements as our own, because we lack ours. We do not know and we forget that we do not know - our ignorance becomes a hollow we do not guard, an aspect of identity that we abandon to the outside, and thus it is filled with the meaning of another. The authority to define social meaning endows great power, because it establishes terms of reference among which the identity of its interlocutor is inadvertently interpolated. He who defines the identity of another, who makes another accept that he is this or that, gains control over his victim, akin to possession. Indeed, we kill, ridicule or protest on behest of the voices we hear in our heads, thinking those voices are an expressions of our individuality and autonomy.

Commenter

A

Location

B+

Date and time

February 05, 2013, 8:26AM

Lets start with getting over the obsession of pre pubescent girls being on the cover of magazines as the "look".......but then, media is only interested in selling magazines and pictures of "normal" people just don't sell......This silly obsession with beauty and fame has its consequences

Commenter

shemp

Location

melb

Date and time

February 05, 2013, 8:39AM

I find that this eating disorder is a gradual thing. I know someone who used to be a little bit on the 'fat' side of things. After an emotional upset, he stopped eating for almost 1 week! total number of meals, 3. not a day but a week! He lost so much weight in 1 month! He withdrew himself emotionally, all exercise and not eating healthy, combined with skipping proper meals. The sad part is, everyone is very encouraging by saying things like 'Wow! how nice you look now! how did you lose all that weight and keep it like that?'With all these encouragement, he takes less than 1/3 of his previous intake of the main meals, all focused on low carbs foods(which is good for normal people but I'm not sure about his current diet) with combination of chocolates while at work! Can see the eating disorder I'm talking about?All these change happened within 6 months. Now he catches a cold every month, with stomachaches whenever he 'over-eat' as he likes to call it himself. symptoms of gastric pains is around sometimes.. Sadly.. all exercising and not much intake of foods.. even hearing comments about 'I've put on so much weight! 2 kgs!'. This seems to be the social norm now? I'm not sure...

Commenter

Andreu

Location

Sydney

Date and time

February 05, 2013, 9:42AM

"I was totally uncomfortable, and the photographer was telling me to arch my back and put my hands in that guy's hair."

My job consists of operating on people and sometimes telling teenagers that they will never walk again but thanks for letting me know others have a harder time at work.

Commenter

mike

Location

melbourne

Date and time

February 05, 2013, 10:09AM

An excellent point - I'll refine it further by suggesting that when people judge others harshly, it's actually themselves that they're judging. Everything that people do outwardly is a projection of what they feel about themselves.

Commenter

Matt

Location

Hobart

Date and time

February 05, 2013, 10:23AM

Hi TK - do you have a source on those trends? Not having a go, I'm genuinely quite interested. Cheers.

Commenter

SS

Date and time

February 05, 2013, 10:30AM

@ Mike - Yes, the poor thing had a terrible day at work that day, didn't she? Poor diddums.

If she found snuggling-up to that sexy fella uncomfortable, then she definitely needs to go see a psychiatrist.

Commenter

PeteH

Location

Sydney

Date and time

February 05, 2013, 12:03PM

I find Anna Bauer's comments weird. Even judging all this completely superficially, she is a completely average-looking woman. I can't believe that her BF pretended they weren't together on account of her looks. Something more must be going on.

Commenter

Scal

Date and time

February 05, 2013, 6:06AM

Totally agree. And the viciousness of comments made to, by strangers, her seem implausible.